


Needing/Getting

by cl0wnf11sh



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e03 Just A Regular Irregular, Harlan Emple Deserved Better: Instead I'm Giving Him Worse, I've never written for this fandom before, M/M, May be continued, One-Sided Attraction, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 09:43:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16261628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cl0wnf11sh/pseuds/cl0wnf11sh
Summary: It should be simple, simple reasoning, but it just isn't.Harlan loves Sherlock. Harlan is hopelessly in love with Sherlock. Sherlock both cannot and will not love Harlan, and he's very clearly demonstrated that he will not be friends with him either.





	Needing/Getting

Harlan has a problem. 

It's his week off, so he's attempting to spend his free time on another puzzle, something that's normally a passion of his. He places dry-erase marker to whiteboard, pauses, until the pause is too long and he realizes he won't be writing anything.

Hands shaking minutely, he pulls away and turns the lights back on, capping the pen and pulling a clean shirt on. The logical assumption here would be that he's lost his touch because the last math game he participated in was an elaborate scheme, part of an effort to try and _kill him,_ but he knows, solidly, cleanly, that it is something else entirely. 

Sherlock's words have been looping in his head for the last five days.

_"Over time, you became quite.. needy."_

And when he had called him his friend:

_"I was your employer, Harlan. And you were my consultant. One of many."_

And then, of course, seconds after saving his life and preventing him from being hunted down by the FBI..

_"My reasons for preserving you are entirely selfish, Harlan. You are a tremendous asset."_

He's known this whole stupid.. thing he has for him was doomed from the start, obviously; Harlan doesn't have all the facts, but he's pretty much fully aware of the fact that the only person Sherlock has ever deigned to have romantic feelings towards is a genius criminal mastermind that's under lock and key someplace. 

He's smart, sure, but he's not a genius. Not that much of a genius. Never could hope to be.

And then, of course, there's the sticky fact that despite Sherlock's promiscuous hobbies, he's never, as far as he knows, taken home anyone that wasn't an attractive woman, and "attractive woman" is a bracket Harlan could never hope to fill. 

He'd been content, for a while, in the comfortable position of friend. Plagued by the constant knowledge that Sherlock will never feel anything even bordering on romantic towards him, or even bordering on purely sexual (not that he'd be interested even if he wasn't straight, Harlan knows he's not a catch), but still happy with the relative closeness. But then, he'd stopped responding to his texts and invitations, and then he'd found out that Sherlock had been in another goddamned country for _eight months_ without giving him so much as a heads-up. Then there was Indira Patel, and all those _words,_ delivered with that blank, biting air, like he couldn't care less what said words did to him. 

Because he doesn't care. Harlan isn't angry at Sherlock, really, deep down. That's just how he works, it's not his fault, is it? He could love one person (who Harlan isn't), he can fuck a certain kind of person (who Harlan isn't), and, then, he can be friends with a small, specific group of people. Joan, Kitty, Detective Bell. Harlan isn't one of those people either, he knows that now, and he can live with that- or, he's sure he should be able to live with that. 

This all works out like a math problem, but it's one that he is incapable of solving. That's the thing that's throwing him off so much- it should be simple, simple reasoning, but it just isn't. 

Harlan loves Sherlock. Harlan is hopelessly in love with Sherlock. Sherlock both cannot and will not love Harlan, and he's very clearly demonstrated that he will not be friends with him either. The logical course from there is, of course, to move on from Sherlock, make more friends, find someone else that might even reciprocate, but that's the thing, that's where he keeps getting caught. There is no way to move on, nowhere to go.

Harlan realizes he's stopped halfway through buttoning his shirt and resumes, sitting down at his desk and opening his laptop with a heavy sigh. It may be his week off, but he still has papers to grade, work to do. He knows he probably won't be sleeping tonight.

He'll manage.


End file.
